In this episode of the Macworld Podcast we devote a lot of time to a little thing—the updated Mac mini. Macworld editorial director, Jason Snell, senior news editor, Jonathan Seff, senior editor, Dan Frakes, and I go around the table examining the import of this diminutive Mac.

Before that extended interview, I address two subjects close to my heart—jailbroken iPhones and pocket-able iPods. Specifically I throw a couple of cents at the notion that neither the existence of a third-party iPhone application store or a button-less iPod are things to be feared.

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Show Notes

In the News & Commentary segment I discuss jailbreaking the iPhone and iPod touch in order to use Cydia and its application store. In order to jailbreak an iPhone, you need a tool such as QuickPwn, developed by the iPhone Dev Team. You can learn more about it from the Dev Team’s blog.

Later in that same News & Commentary segment I suggest that the new button-less iPod shuffle is a perfectly fine device if you’re the kind of person who either loves Apple’s earbuds or doesn’t care enough to swap them for another set of earbuds and someone who is prepared to use the shuffle as it’s intended—press Play and rock on—and put up with greater inconvenience if you want to navigate the device. My colleague, Dan Moren, is more dismayed than I by the design of the shuffle and explains why in The new iPod shuffle: Button, button, who’s got the button?